Kate (not pictured) says she was a victim of bullying and harassment.
Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Kate, 18, from Surrey

I was 12 when I first started self-harming. At my school there was a lot of bullying and harassment happening. Kids would throw my stuff out the window, pick on me for how I looked and the music I listened to. There was a lot of sexting going on within our school and I got targeted, which was very upsetting.

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The first time I self-harmed, it was around Christmas and I felt depressed and suicidal. I started self-harming to cope with my feelings. The pain distracted me from what was going on inside me. I started to believe what people said about me, all the negative comments, so it was a form of self-punishment too.

Social media made things worse: teenagers now see so much online. Once I stumbled across this video of a girl talking about committing suicide – at 12 or 13 years old, thatwas very heavy.

Eventually people noticed what I was doing. When I was getting changed for PE one day, some other students came up to me later and said: “I tried what you are doing.” It made me feel worse because they were making a big deal out of it in front of everyone. I then felt like I was trying to influence others even though I was trying to hide it. I felt guilty.

A couple of my friends emailed our head of year about it, and he tried to help but told my parents without my permission. It made me feel angry and more anxious. I had frequent panic attacks at that time but I was not ready for them to know.

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He told me that he would be taking me out of lessons to go into counselling, which was quite daunting. I ended up going and it was terrible. I found it hard to talk to a stranger. She was a nice person but I did not want to open up about what I was going through and the counsellor never brought it up. She let me say what I wanted to say but it backfired as I felt like I would not say anything.

Young people are exposed to a lot of bad influences now. For example, the Netflix show Thirteen Reasons Why is great for raising awareness about mental health problems but normalises issues such as depression. A lot of people take quotes from it and dwell on it.

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My school should have asked more questions to check up on students. I felt like I was just thrown into counselling and that was it. They didn’t check it was going well or ask how I was afterwards. I had a lot of friends going through similar stuff and was trying my best to help them but the school wasn’t doing anything.

Another problem I had was that my self-esteem was low and I felt like I was bad at everything academically. I was awful at maths and science. I really wanted to do music at GCSE but they wouldn’t let me because they said it wasn’t academic enough.

I had a huge panic attack during my maths exam in year 10. After letting me calm down for a bit they just ushered me straight in without actually asking me if there was any way they could help. I didn’t pass my maths but I passed my drama, art and everything else.

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Schools just cater to people who are the same. Nowadays it is all about grades and who is the smartest. The people that don’t fit this criteria are made to feel worse, especially if they are struggling with their mental health.

My message to those trying to tackle this is that young people need to feel OK in themselves. It would have helped me if people had realised how deep the issue ran. They saw it as attention-seeking and I never got the help I needed. There should be some sort of guidance on what teachers need to do and how students should react to others going through it.

Names have been changed.

In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international suicide helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.